DEV Community: crowd.dev

I analyzed the 14 best open-source products launched on Product Hunt in 2023. Here's what I found.

fmerian — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 17:55:20 +0000

Product Hunt just unveiled a list of 14 products nominated for the Golden Kitty Award 2023 in the “Open Source” category.

I analyzed the following data to identify some trends:

launch dates;
# upvotes;
# comments;
awards.

Here’s what I found.

tl,dr

11 products (79%) launched on a weekday;
11 products (79%) ranked #1 Product of the Day, with 977 upvotes on average.

key takeaways

11 products (79%) launched on a weekday: 21% launched on Mon or Tue, 14% launched on Thu or Fri;
10 products (71%) launched for the first time;

On launch day, the best open-source products got on average:

977 upvotes, range:[439-2,229];
222 comments, range:[15-466].

As a result:

11 products (79%) ranked #1 Product of the Day, 13 products (93%) reached the Top 5;
2 products (14%) ranked #1 Product of the Week, 10 products (71%) reached the Top 5;
2 products (14%) reached the Top 5 Products of the Month.

wrapping up

I hope you'll find these learnings helpful. For the record, you can find the dataset here.

If you're planning to launch a dev tool on Product Hunt, find inspiration from more great dev-first product launches there.

Enjoy!

Who's hiring developer advocates? — December 2023

fmerian — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 12:37:00 +0000

If you're looking for a new opportunity as a Developer Advocate, this post is for you.

5 open source companies hiring developer advocates in December

Below are 5 open roles in OSS companies:

BentoML

Open Platform for AI Developers
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

MongoDB

Teleport

Open Infrastructure Access Platform
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Temporal

Open Source Durable Execution Platform
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Wing Cloud

Open Source, Cloud-Oriented Programming Language
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Wrapping up

I hope this selection will help you take a new step in your career.

Every Friday, I hand-pick open roles in the dev tools space and post them on Twitter / X and LinkedIn.

And if you want more open roles, go to ossjobs.dev, a job board that helps you find your next career opportunity, specifically in the open-source space.

Who else's hiring?

Is your company hiring? Please let me know! Reply here or send me a DM and I'll make sure to add it to the next edition.

See you next month -- keep it up! 👋

Who's hiring developer advocates? — November 2023

fmerian — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 12:37:00 +0000

If you're looking for a new opportunity as a Developer Advocate, this post is for you.

5 open source companies hiring developer advocates in November

Below are 5 open roles in OSS companies:

Wrapping up

I hope this selection will help you take a new step in your career.

Every Friday, I hand-pick open roles in the dev tools space and post them on Twitter / X and LinkedIn.

And if you want more open roles, go to ossjobs.dev, a job board that helps you find your next career opportunity, specifically in the open-source space.

Who else's hiring?

Is your company hiring? Please let me know! Reply here or send me a DM and I'll make sure to add it to the next edition.

See you next month -- keep it up! 👋

Supporting open-source projects on Product Hunt

fmerian — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 10:04:01 +0000

Earlier this year, I started contributing to open source -- and enjoy doing it.

From this experience, I learned two main lessons:

You can start contributing anytime,
You don't need to code to contribute.

For non-developers, you can contribute in many (7) different ways:

Sponsor open-source projects,
Translate,
Document,
Test,
Manage issues,
Design,
Engage in communities -- joining discussions, giving talks, and helping spread the word.

There's more.

You can support open-source projects on Product Hunt, too.

Supporting OSS projects on Product Hunt

Product Hunt features new products daily. It gets millions of visits every month.

For open-source maintainers, launching on Product Hunt is an opportunity to raise awareness. And they need support!

We're in October, it's #Hacktoberfest. There's no better time to start contributing.

Let's celebrate this month by supporting open-source products.

Open-source projects launched on Product Hunt during #Hacktoberfest2023

Here's a list of past and upcoming launches from open-source projects on Product Hunt this month.

Let's support and upvote them!

Formbricks, launched on October 31st
Wasp Full-Stack Auth, launched on October 27th
Emitbase, launched on October 25th
Nuxt UI, launched on October 21st
Novu, launched on October 19th
TileDesk Design Studio, launched on October 19th
Appwrite Cloud Beta, launched on October 17th
Komiser, launched on october 17th
Pulumi ESC, launched on October 17th
Taipy Cloud, launched on October 16th
Cal.ai, launched on October 15th
Distillery, launched on October 13th
OpenSauced, launched on October 11th
Swagger Editor, launched on October 11th
ZenStack, launched on October 10th
Payload 2.0, launched on October 9th
Ddosify, launched on October 5th
Evidence 2.0, launched on October 4th
n8n LangChain integration, launched on October 4th
Lenra, launched on October 2nd
Best Hacktoberfest Projects, launched on October 1st
Gitpod Browser Extension, launched on October 1st

Last updated on:

2023-10-31

Over to you

Who's launching an open-source product this month? Any projects that I missed?

Drop a link to your product launch in the comments, and I'll add it to the list.

Enjoy Hacktoberfest!

Increase community engagement with trunk-based management

fmerian — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 08:37:23 +0000

In software engineering, trunk-based development (TBD) is a strategy to manage git workflows that suggests merging commits in a single main branch, instead of the git flow that suggests working on multiple branches.

This story is about applying this strategy to community management to increase engagement.

Growing an engaging community with trunk-based management

Six months ago, I joined Ronak Ganatra, Jakub Czakon, and Ophir Prusak as an admin to co-run the Developer Marketing Community — a place where tech founders and marketers hang out to share insights and best practices. People from dev-first companies like Algolia, PostHog, Supabase, Vercel, and Warp are all in.

The objective? To grow an engaging community.

At this time, the community had:

600+ members,
20% of weekly active members (120+), and
5% of members who post (30+).

Only 1 out of 5 people were active members. Worse, only 1 out of 50 people posted messages.

So, how to increase engagement and ignite conversations?

We had two radically opposite hypotheses:

More channels to inspire conversations,
Fewer channels for randomness.

Hypothesis #1: more channels for inspiration

As founders and marketers in dev-first companies, we talk about many topics: developer relations, content marketing, product launches, SEO strategies, swag, and so on.

We initially created one channel per topic to reduce noise, focus discussions, and inspire.

We created nine different channels:

├── 1-general
├── 2-intros
├── 3-jobs
├── 4-content
├── 5-devrel
├── 6-feedback-requests
├── 7-first-time-marketers
├── 8-random
└── 9-shameless-plugs

In such a structure, some community members started to ask us: "Where to post? Is this channel the right place?"

Some channels were obvious: #intros, #jobs.

Now, picture this:

You're a first-time marketer.
You just published a blog post with lessons you learned attending a developer conference. Such a story would be an awesome resource for the community.
Where should you post it?

#content, #devrel, and #first-time-marketers sound like relevant channels. Or #general because it has more community members and would increase reach? Or is it just #shameless-plugs?

We realized that to answer "where should I post," more options led to harder decisions.

In psychology, people call it the Hick's Law.

Hick's Law predicts that the time and the effort it takes to make a decision, increases with the number of options. The more choices, the more time people take to make their decisions.
— source: growth.design

The more options, the more time one takes to decide. Worse, we realized that when in doubt, community members just didn't post anything at all — and that's exactly what we wanted to avoid.

As a result, most conversations happened in #general, and 50% of channels were inactive.

If more channels don't inspire community members to engage more, what could inspire them? How about fewer options?

Hypothesis #2: fewer channels for randomness

We completely redesigned the structure of the community. We archived the most inactive channels and renamed for clarity.

We had six different channels:

├── 1-announcements
├── 2-ask-anything
├── 3-intros
├── 4-jobs
├── 5-share-anything
└── 6-watercooler-chat

We defined topics for each channel as below:

#announcements: Weekly highlights and notes from the admins.
#ask-anything: Need help? Looking for feedback, quotes for your next blog post, or guests for your next podcast episode? Ask anything here.
#intros: Introduce yourself!
#jobs: Growing your team? Looking for a new opportunity? This channel is where you can post your open roles, recommend someone you've worked with, or drop your resume.
#share-anything: Launching on Product Hunt? Need a boost on dev.to, LinkedIn, or X? Think of this channel as your engagement pod.
#watercooler-chat: All-things not developer marketing.

In this experiment, #ask-anything and #share-anything are the most interesting channels from my perspective:

Do you have anything to ask? Go to #ask-anything.
Do you have anything to share? Go to #share-anything.

If we go back to the previous example:

First-time marketer,
That just published a blog post on DevRel.
Where should you post it?

The answer is straightforward: #share-anything.

Results?

Six months later, the community has:

1,000+ members,
20% of weekly active members (200+), and
10% of members who post (100+).

By reducing the number of channels, we doubled the percentage of members who post while growing the community by +70% in six months.

Wrapping up

If you need help building an engaging community, think trunk-based management.

Inspired by software engineering, this strategy suggests focusing conversations in a few main channels, instead of having multiple channels.

Reducing the number of options makes it simpler for your community members to start conversations. Enjoy the fun!

Who's hiring developer advocates? — October 2023

fmerian — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:11:35 +0000

If you're looking for a new opportunity as a Developer Advocate, this post is for you.

Pro tip: Want to land a job at an OSS company? Start contributing. We're in October, it's Hacktoberfest, a month-long celebration of open source projects, their maintainers, and the entire community of contributors. It's perfect timing to start contributing. Browse open source projects here and have fun!

5 open source companies hiring developer advocates in October

Below are 5 open roles in OSS companies:

Airbyte

Open source data integration
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Elastic

Free and open, distributed, RESTful search engine
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Oso

Open-source authorization framework
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Tigera

Security and observability for Kubernetes
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Weaviate

Open-source vector database for AI
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Wrapping up

I hope this selection will help you take a new step in your career.

Every Friday, I hand-pick open roles in the dev tools space and post them on Twitter / X and LinkedIn.

And if you want more open roles, go to ossjobs.dev, a job board that helps you find your next career opportunity, specifically in the open-source space.

Who else's hiring?

Is your company hiring? Please let me know! Reply here or send me a DM and I'll make sure to add it to the next edition.

See you next month -- keep it up! 👋

Should every developer tool follow product-led growth? with Prashant Sridharan (Tinybird)

Jonathan Reimer — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 07:58:46 +0000

Welcome to a new episode of the Developer-led Podcast! In this episode, we sit down with Prashant Sridharan, the VP of Developer Relations and Marketing at Tinybird, a real-time platform for data and engineering teams. With an impressive 25-year career that includes stops at Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, and AWS, Prashant shares his invaluable insights into the world of developer products and marketing. Let's dive into the key takeaways from our conversation.

Listen to this Podcast 🎧
You can listen to this episode of Developer-led on all regular podcast platforms.

1. The Role of Developer Relations and Marketing

Emphasizing the need to combine advocacy and marketing efforts, Prashant believes in starting with advocacy to establish a strong presence and build a developer community.

2. Learning from Mistakes: Three Key Lessons

Reflecting on his career, Prashant identified three major mistakes:

Not taking enough chances early in his career.
Overlooking diverse input when developing marketing strategies.
Failing to understand his team's strengths and weaknesses as a leader.

3. Honesty and Transparency in Developer Marketing

Prashant stressed the importance of honesty and transparency in developer marketing. He emphasized that developers expect truthfulness and that marketing should provide valuable information about a product's capabilities over time.

4. Should any Developer Product implement Product-Led Growth (PLG)?

Prashant offered a nuanced perspective on PLG, rejecting absolute notions. He highlighted how PLG can be instrumental for getting started with a product, especially for smaller teams or startups. However, he also advocated for a flexible approach, where PLG can evolve into enterprise contracts.

5. Introducing the ACES framework for PLG adoption

Introducing his ACES framework (Awareness, Conversion, Expansion, and Systems), Prashant guided companies through the phases of PLG adoption, from building awareness to nurturing expansion and developing measurement systems for success.

6. Content, Events, and Paid Ads: Building Developer Engagement

Prashant emphasized the role of founders in driving customer and messaging discovery. Founders have the moral authority to lead these efforts, essential for achieving product-market fit. He discussed the importance of content creation to earn credibility and crafting messaging that resonates with the target audience.

7. The Power of In-Person Events

Highlighting the value of in-person events, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, Prashant underlined the importance of building relationships and networking in person. He also discussed how messaging evolves based on the company's stage and presence at events.

8. The Ever-Evolving Role of Messaging

Prashant explained how messaging changes over time and the importance of confidently communicating these changes to teams. He stressed the need for listening to customer feedback and incorporating it into messaging strategies.

9. Collaboration and Customer Feedback

Prashant recommended creating a central repository for customer feedback and meeting notes to ensure everyone in the company is aware of customer interactions. He underlined the importance of involving the entire team in the feedback loop.

10. Building Vision and Leadership

Encouraging leaders to build a clear vision for their products and bring the team along as they institute change, Prashant underscored the value of hiring great people and letting them excel in their roles.

To connect with Prashant and follow his insights, you can reach out to him on LinkedIn. In conclusion, Prashant Sridharan provides a wealth of knowledge and experience in the realm of developer marketing. His insights on the intersection of developer relations, marketing, and PLG offer valuable guidance for anyone looking to build and grow successful developer-focused products. Don't miss out on the full podcast episode to delve deeper into these valuable insights.

Who's hiring developer advocates? — September 2023

fmerian — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 15:10:25 +0000

If you're looking for a new opportunity as a Developer Advocate, this post is for you.

5 open-source companies hiring developer advocates in September

Below are 5 open roles in open-source companies:

Hanko

Open source authentication for the passkey era
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Lago

Open source metering & usage-based billing
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

MongoDB

Developer data platform for developers to do their best work
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Neon

Open source Serverless Postgres in the Cloud
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Upstash

The Serverless Data for Redis and Kafka
Link to GitHub -->
Link to job description -->

Wrapping up

I hope this selection will help you take a new step in your career.

Every Friday, I hand-pick open roles in the dev tools space and post them on Twitter / X and LinkedIn.

And if you want more open roles, go to ossjobs.dev, a job board that helps you find your next career opportunity, specifically in the open-source space.

Who else's hiring?

Is your company hiring? Please let me know! Reply here or send me a DM and I'll make sure to add it to the next edition.

See you next month -- enjoy! 👋

How to grow a developer blog to 3M annual visitors? with Jakub Czakon (Neptune.ai)

Jonathan Reimer — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 09:06:33 +0000

Welcome to another episode of The Developer-led Podcast, where we dive into the strategies modern companies use to build and grow their developer tools. In this exciting episode, we're joined by Jakub Czakon, the CMO at Neptune.ai, a startup that assists developers in efficiently managing their machine-learning model data. Jakub is renowned not only for his role at Neptune.ai but also for his developer marketing endeavors, including the influential newsletter Developer Markepear and a thriving developer marketing Slack community.

In this episode, Jakub sheds light on his journey, his involvement in developer marketing, and the remarkable achievement of scaling Neptune.ai's blog traffic to a staggering 3 million annual visitors. Let's explore the key insights from this conversation.

Listen to this Podcast 🎧
You can listen to this episode of Developer-led on all regular podcast platforms.

Seizing the Opportunity: Building a Thriving Developer Community

Jakub recognized the significance of cultivating a vibrant developer community early on. He kicked off Neptune.ai's developer marketing initiatives by establishing an engaging Slack community and a resourceful newsletter. The objective was simple: foster collaboration and share valuable insights with like-minded individuals interested in developer marketing.

The Art of Crafting Engaging Content

Neptune.ai's impressive feat of drawing 3 million unique visitors annually to their blog didn't happen by chance. Jakub explains that the process was strategically planned and executed. They tapped into the power of content creation to target various stages of the buyer's journey—ranging from classic marketing to product-aware stages. By identifying gaps in existing content and addressing long-tail keywords, Neptune.ai managed to cater to specific user needs.

Writing for the Right Audience

One crucial aspect of Neptune.ai's success was their ability to tailor content to their audience. Jakub emphasized the importance of understanding the readers and writing content that resonates with them. Whether addressing developers, technical architects, or business executives, Neptune.ai ensured their content was relevant, informative, and impactful.

The Intersection of Developer Marketing and Sales

Connecting developer marketing efforts to sales is an essential aspect of Neptune.ai's strategy. Jakub highlights the concept of "product-led sales," emphasizing the importance of providing strong signals of adoption to technical users. He points out that developer-geared content should offer solutions to real problems developers face, making it more likely for them to engage with the sales process.

Curating Knowledge for Continuous Learning

To stay informed and continually improve, Jakub employs a methodical approach to consuming information. He actively seeks out podcasts, books, and resources on developer marketing and scaling devtools. By diving deep into topics, following experts, and staying updated with the latest trends, Jakub ensures he's well-equipped to drive Neptune.ai's growth.

Through strategic content creation, audience-focused writing, and a keen focus on connecting developer marketing with sales, Neptune.ai's success story offers a roadmap for other developer-focused companies looking to expand their reach. If you're interested in diving deeper into the world of developer marketing and learning from Jakub's experiences, make sure to check out the full podcast episode on The Developer-led Podcast. With the right strategies and dedication, achieving significant growth in the developer community is well within reach.

How to bootstrap an open-source company to $1M ARR? with Ben Rometsch (Flagsmith)

Jonathan Reimer — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 15:11:03 +0000

In this exciting interview, we sit down with Ben Rometsch. Ben is the Founder & CEO of Flagsmith - an Open Source Feature Flag, Remote Config, and AB testing platform. Started in 2019, the open-source company is fully bootstrapped and makes over $1M in annual recurring revenue from companies like Citi Bank, United Health Group, or Komercni Bank. Besides Flagsmith, Ben founded several other companies and serves on the OpenFeature Governance Board of CNCF. He is also the host of the “The Craft of Open Source Podcast”, where he interviews creators and maintainers from the open-source community.

Ben shares the founding story of Flagsmith and how it evolved from a side project within his software agency to a successful independent business. He also discusses the reasons behind their decision to bootstrap the company and the challenges they faced in the process. Additionally, Ben provides valuable insights into their go-to-market strategy and the importance of identifying the ideal customer profile to drive growth. Let's dive into the key takeaways from the interview.

Listen to this Podcast 🎧
You can listen to this episode of Developer-led on all regular podcast platforms.

From Side Project to Independent Business

The founding story of Flagsmith is a classic tale of a side project that emerged from Ben Rometsch's software agency in London. Initially, the platform was built to solve coordination challenges between multiple teams working on different projects. However, as it evolved, it became evident that there was a market need for an open-source feature flagging platform, which led to Flagsmith becoming a standalone business.

The Decision to Bootstrap

One of the remarkable aspects of Flagsmith's journey is that they chose to bootstrap the company, avoiding external funding sources. This decision was driven by several factors. Firstly, the team preferred to maintain complete control over the company's direction without external pressure. Secondly, they wanted to build a business that was profitable early on, and their agency provided the financial flexibility to do so. Finally, as inbound leads from large enterprises started coming in, it became evident that external funding was unnecessary.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Early Ideal Customer Profile

In the early stages, Flagsmith's go-to-market strategy relied on inbound leads from organizations looking for self-hosted, on-premise, or open-source feature flagging solutions. By identifying the gaps in their product offering and listening to potential customers' needs, they refined their ideal customer profile. This process helped them align their product roadmap and prioritize features that addressed customers' pain points.

Sustainable Growth and Competitive Edge

As a bootstrapped company, Flagsmith focuses on sustainable growth and maintaining a competitive edge in the market. They have a growing team, and while they are aware of well-funded competitors, they believe in the power of small teams to drive innovation. Their commitment to open-source values and transparency is a unique selling point, helping them gain the trust of customers who prefer a sustainable and reliable solution.

Looking Ahead - The Future of Flagsmith

In the next five years, Flagsmith envisions steady growth, continuous profitability, and remaining true to their open-source roots. They prioritize staying relevant to customers' needs and keeping the platform user-friendly while expanding their feature set. The goal is to maintain a healthy perspective on growth without feeling the pressure to chase funding or outpace competitors.

Conclusion

The journey of Flagsmith from a side project to a successful open-source company holds valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs and developers. Ben Rometsch's insights on bootstrapping, go-to-market strategy, and customer-centric development provide a roadmap for building a sustainable and profitable business. As Flagsmith continues to grow, its commitment to open-source values and customer satisfaction remains unwavering, making it a standout player in the feature flagging landscape.

To learn more about Flagsmith and stay updated on their progress, you can follow Flagsmith on GitHub and catch Ben’s thoughts on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Why is GitHub not open-source? with Zach Holman (ex GitHub & GitLab)

Jonathan Reimer — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 12:45:38 +0000

GitHub, a widely popular platform for developers, has revolutionized the way code is shared, collaborated on, and managed. However, despite its commitment to open-source software, GitHub itself is not open-source. In a recent interview with Zach Holman, an engineer who worked at GitHub for five years and later advised GitLab, we gain insights into the factors that contributed to GitHub's success, its approach to building a developer community, and the decision to keep the platform closed-source. Let's explore the key takeaways from this conversation.

Listen to this Podcast 🎧
You can listen to this episode of Developer-led on all regular podcast platforms.

Timing and Building a Developer Community

One of the significant factors that played a crucial role in GitHub's success was timing. Zach Holman emphasizes the importance of seizing the right moment to launch a product. GitHub's founders had a deep understanding of the Ruby community, which allowed them to build a strong initial user base. By capturing the attention of influential developers and providing a valuable platform, GitHub started gaining traction organically.

Culture and Developer Evangelism

Zach Holman sheds light on the role of culture and developer evangelism in GitHub's growth. GitHub embraced an open-source approach internally, modeling itself after successful open-source projects. This approach fostered a culture of collaboration and transparency, resonating with developers worldwide. Zach Holman played a pivotal role in promoting this culture through conference talks and advocating for the open-source way of working.

Transitioning to a Larger Organization

As GitHub grew from a small team to a company of 250 employees, it faced unique challenges in maintaining its culture. The addition of managers and the need for more structured processes became inevitable. Zach acknowledges that scaling the company culture while maintaining productivity and innovation was a complex task. The transition from a managerless organization to one with a hierarchical structure required careful implementation and adjustments.

The Open-Source Dilemma

The decision to keep GitHub itself closed-source, despite its focus on open-source software, was a subject of ongoing discussion within the company. Zach Holman acknowledges the merits of both approaches. While open-sourcing aspects of the product can promote transparency and community collaboration, it also presents challenges in managing contributions, dealing with potential negativity, and maintaining a competitive advantage. GitHub's experience and exposure to various scenarios influenced the team's perspective on open-sourcing their entire product.

GitHub vs. GitLab: Differences and Perspectives

Having also advised GitLab, another prominent platform for developers, Zach Holman provides insights into the significant differences between the two companies. GitLab's strong commitment to open-source principles and its transparent decision-making processes set it apart. Zach acknowledges that GitLab's open-sourceness has a significant impact on its culture and product development pace. However, he emphasizes that both GitHub and GitLab have found success by employing different approaches, proving that there isn't a single correct path.

Transitioning from Engineering to Angel Investing

Zach Holman's journey from engineering at GitHub to angel investing brings a unique perspective to the discussion. He highlights the advantage of having technical knowledge when investing in tech companies. By advising and investing in different startups, Zach gained valuable insights into diverse industries, broadening his perspective. Investing became an extension of his advisory role, allowing him to leverage his experience to make informed decisions.

Wrapping up

The interview with Zach Holman provides valuable insights into the growth of GitHub, the challenges of scaling company culture, and the decision-making process behind keeping the platform closed-source. GitHub's success can be attributed to factors such as perfect timing, a strong developer community, and an open-source culture. While GitHub remains closed-source, the conversation also highlights the merits of open-sourcing aspects of a product. Ultimately, the success of platforms like GitHub and GitLab showcases that different approaches can lead to remarkable achievements in the developer community.

What are Developer Relations? with Tanay Pant (ex Okta, n8n, Crate)

Jonathan Reimer — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 09:19:43 +0000

In the fast-paced world of software development, building strong relationships with developers is crucial for the success of products and platforms. Developer Relations (DevRel) is a field that focuses on fostering these relationships and empowering developers to be successful. In this episode of Developer-led, we will explore key insights from Tanay Pant, as he shares his journey into DevRel and provides valuable perspectives on the field.

Tanay Pant is a 4 times author, software developer, and open-source advocate. He is best known for his work on "Building a Virtual Assistant for Raspberry Pi" and "Learning Firefox OS Application Development". He has been acknowledged for his contributions to the different open-source projects of the Mozilla Foundation. Based in Berlin, Tanay has been working in several Developer Relation roles over the last years for companies including Okta, n8n, and Crate.

Listen to this Podcast 🎧
You can listen to this episode of Developer-led on all regular podcast platforms.

Finding Inspiration in Open Source Communities

Tanay Pant's journey into DevRel was not a premeditated plan but rather a natural progression of his involvement in open source communities, particularly the Mozilla Foundation. He engaged in activities such as working with Firefox student ambassadors, organizing events, and writing books. Through these experiences, he discovered the overlap between his work and the activities of DevRel professionals. This realization sparked his interest in exploring the field further.

Defining Developer Relations

Developer Relations can be defined by four key components: evangelism, experience, advocacy, and community. Evangelism focuses on making developers aware of products and solutions that can address their specific needs. Experience ensures that developers who discover these products have a seamless and successful journey. Advocacy empowers community members to advocate for and promote the products they love. Lastly, community building involves creating an engaged and supportive developer community. Not all companies prioritize every aspect of DevRel, as their focus depends on their specific business goals and stage of development.

Balancing Business Objectives and Developer Interests

A critical aspect of DevRel is striking a balance between the business objectives of the company and the interests of developers within the community. Tanay Pant emphasizes the importance of transparency and clear communication to avoid misalignments. If significant differences arise between company objectives and community interests, it is crucial to reflect on the strategies and promises made to the community. Transparency helps ensure that the community remains engaged and that decision-making involves their input.

Measuring the Value of Developer Relations

Before hiring a DevRel team, it is essential to clearly define the value it will bring to the company. Tanay Pant suggests that metrics should be established upfront, aligning with high-level company objectives. These metrics should guide the team's activities and provide measurable outcomes. Strategies employed in early-stage startups may differ from those in larger companies, considering the different personas and communities involved.

Building and Maintaining Developer Relationships

Empathy is key to building and maintaining relationships with developers in a community. Understanding their challenges, pain points, and aspirations is crucial. Engaging with developers through various channels, such as product onboarding sessions, support forums, and participating in broader discussions, helps foster meaningful connections. Tanay Pant mentions using tools like Equalize to monitor conversations and engage with relevant content.

Controversial View: DevRel Might Not Be Necessary for All Companies

Tanay Pant shares a controversial view that not all companies, especially early-stage startups, may require a dedicated DevRel function. Instead, they might benefit from specific expertise such as growth hacking or marketing. For such cases, consulting with DevRel professionals can provide the required guidance and support without establishing a full-fledged DevRel team.

The Future of Developer Relations

As DevRel continues to grow, Tanay Pant envisions the emergence of more consultancies specializing in the field. These consultancies can assist companies in building and nurturing developer communities. Additionally, he predicts that the DevRel industry will further cultivate a culture of career growth and development within the field.

DEV Community: crowd.dev

I analyzed the 14 best open-source products launched on Product Hunt in 2023. Here's what I found.

tl,dr

key takeaways

wrapping up

Who's hiring developer advocates? — December 2023

5 open source companies hiring developer advocates in December

BentoML

MongoDB

Teleport

Temporal

Wing Cloud

Wrapping up

Who else's hiring?

Who's hiring developer advocates? — November 2023

5 open source companies hiring developer advocates in November

Aiven

Grafana

Hoppscotch

Ory

Zilliz

Wrapping up

Who else's hiring?

Supporting open-source projects on Product Hunt

Supporting OSS projects on Product Hunt

Open-source projects launched on Product Hunt during #Hacktoberfest2023

Over to you

Increase community engagement with trunk-based management

Growing an engaging community with trunk-based management

Hypothesis #1: more channels for inspiration

Hypothesis #2: fewer channels for randomness

Wrapping up

Who's hiring developer advocates? — October 2023

5 open source companies hiring developer advocates in October

Airbyte

Elastic

Oso

Tigera

Weaviate

Wrapping up

Who else's hiring?

Should every developer tool follow product-led growth? with Prashant Sridharan (Tinybird)

1. The Role of Developer Relations and Marketing

2. Learning from Mistakes: Three Key Lessons

3. Honesty and Transparency in Developer Marketing

4. Should any Developer Product implement Product-Led Growth (PLG)?

5. Introducing the ACES framework for PLG adoption

6. Content, Events, and Paid Ads: Building Developer Engagement

7. The Power of In-Person Events

8. The Ever-Evolving Role of Messaging

9. Collaboration and Customer Feedback

10. Building Vision and Leadership

Who's hiring developer advocates? — September 2023

5 open-source companies hiring developer advocates in September

Hanko

Lago

MongoDB

Neon

Upstash

Wrapping up

Who else's hiring?

How to grow a developer blog to 3M annual visitors? with Jakub Czakon (Neptune.ai)

Seizing the Opportunity: Building a Thriving Developer Community

The Art of Crafting Engaging Content

Writing for the Right Audience

The Intersection of Developer Marketing and Sales

Curating Knowledge for Continuous Learning

How to bootstrap an open-source company to $1M ARR? with Ben Rometsch (Flagsmith)

From Side Project to Independent Business

The Decision to Bootstrap

Go-to-Market Strategy and Early Ideal Customer Profile

Sustainable Growth and Competitive Edge

Looking Ahead - The Future of Flagsmith

Conclusion

Why is GitHub not open-source? with Zach Holman (ex GitHub & GitLab)

Timing and Building a Developer Community

Culture and Developer Evangelism

Transitioning to a Larger Organization

The Open-Source Dilemma

GitHub vs. GitLab: Differences and Perspectives